Killer Girlfriend: The Jodi Arias Story

Travis couldn’t help himself. Jodi was every man’s dream. The sex was fantastic.
She was up for anything, you name it. The petite, brown-haired — sometimes blonde
— seductive 27-year-old was a pleaser, willing to satisfy Travis’ every kinky desire.

On this day in June 2008, the 30-year-old Travis was ready for more. He was preparing
to head off on a trip to Cancun with a devoutly Mormon woman who made it crystal clear
she wasn’t interested in anything beyond a platonic relationship.

But Travis had Jodi. And despite wanting to marry a good woman of faith, he had carnal
desires that deeply conflicted with the man he presented himself to be publicly and
the private lust he harbored behind closed doors.

Jodi served a purpose. She was never Mrs. Right, just Miss Right Now as Travis fulfilled
his sexual needs before hopefully meeting The One.

This never sat well with Jodi.

She arrived at about 4 a.m. from California during what was supposed to be a road
trip to see another man in Utah. Arizona was hundreds of miles off her course, but
she couldn’t resist Travis’ charm and her overwhelming desire to please him. She was
blinded by her love for the handsome, confident and outgoing professional who gave
rousing motivational speeches to cheering colleagues at conferences across the country.
His smile lit up the room and melted her heart. It was never clear whether Travis
had invited Jodi to come to see him on that day. Authorities contend he had not, but
Jodi insisted he begged her to come.

The two crawled into his king-size bed together. When they awoke in the afternoon
at about 1 p.m. in Travis’s tidy four-bedroom home in Mesa outside Phoenix, the day
began like so many others with the pair, naked and sexual.

But according to police, that’s not all Jodi had in mind. She came for revenge. She
came to teach Travis a lesson. She came to kill.

Less than five hours later, Travis would be dead.

Exactly what happened during those remaining hours of Travis’ life is known only
by two people — Travis and Jodi — and Jodi is the only one still alive to fill in
the gaps.

***

According to Jodi, the day began with steamy sex and eventually devolved into a harrowing
fight for her life.

Her rendition of the final hours of Travis’ life - and what came after - follows:

Travis always wanted to tie her to the bed for a raunchy romp, so she complied. He
loosely tied her wrists to his headboard before the sex began.

Travis later had other plans — for the two to take nude photos of each other, yet
another deviant fantasy he privately harbored. Jodi naked in pigtails on the bed,
splayed out on his mattress. Graphic, pornographic, close-up photos of Jodi’s genitalia.
A photo of Travis lying naked on his back.

Just a few hours later, Travis wanted her to take photographs of him in the shower,
proud of his newly fit body after months of working out ahead of the trip to Mexico.

One photo of Travis in the shower was taken at about 5:30 that evening. Another was
taken a short time later, a chilling tight shot of Travis’ face, water beads dripping
from his cheeks, his eyes focused in a serious gaze.

Jodi then accidentally dropped his new camera, sending him into a rage. He lunged
in anger, body slamming her to the tile floor. She managed to escape his firm grasp
and wriggled free.

Travis chased her from the bathroom in a fury. She ran into his closet to retrieve
a .25-caliber pistol he kept on a shelf, then fled out another door at the opposite
end in a dash for the hallway — with Travis still in pursuit and clearly enraged.

He lunged at her again. She fired the gun, but didn’t know if the bullet struck him.
He just kept coming. And now Jodi’s memory failed her. Her mind grew foggy, the trauma
of the attack washing her brain of any recollection of what happened next.

She conceded she must have stabbed him numerous times, but can’t recall where she
got the knife, or anything after that until she finds herself about 280 miles north
near the Hoover Dam in Nevada, pulled onto the side of the road, her hands drenched
in blood. She knew something terrible had happened, but just couldn’t remember the
details.

“I must have killed him,” she thought to herself. Stricken with fear and shame, Jodi
ditched the gun somewhere in the desert — she has no idea what she did with the knife
— and headed north to Salt Lake City to see the other man. But not before starting
a chain of events aimed at meticulously creating an alibi to avoid suspicion.

She would later claim she was never at Travis’ house that day. She sent him text
messages and emails within hours of killing him, and left him a message on his mobile
phone apologizing for not being able to make it for a visit that day, as he had wanted.

Jodi then continued north to Salt Lake City where she met the man and spent the night
in his bed kissing and cuddling as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t just
washed Travis’ blood from her hands. As if Travis was still alive and not crumpled
dead in his shower with nearly 30 stab wounds, his throat slit from ear to ear so
deeply she nearly cut his head clean off, a bullet hole in his forehead.

She would go on with her life, returning to Northern California for her regular waitressing
shifts, and her normal routine for roughly the next month until her arrest.

Then came the lies.

First, she wasn’t there.

Next, masked intruders carried out the attack and she escaped.

Two years after being jailed on a first-degree murder charge, and faced with irrefutable
evidence of her involvement in the killing, the self-defense story emerged. And to
this day, she is sticking to that story.

***

Police present a much more chilling scenario of Travis’ death, one of blind rage
and vengeance, an attack so ferocious it’s hard to imagine the soft-spoken librarian-like
woman later seen in a courtroom could have been behind it.

Authorities say Jodi snapped, tired of being used by Travis for sex while he courted
other women he had hoped would be the marrying type.

Travis didn’t even know Jodi was coming, let alone would be arriving armed with a
.25 caliber pistol she took from her grandparents, making sure he would never get
the chance to fulfill his dreams of becoming a family man and settling down with another
woman.

After the day of sex, Travis took a shower. Jodi begged him to let her take photos
while he washed off. He caved, begrudgingly.